Rattlesnake Hill
On Wednesday we invited one of Julian's friends from work, Matt, over for a pot roast dinner. Matt brought four samples of his home brewed beers for us to taste. All were very unique and well balanced in flavor.
For a bit of Friday evening frivolity we decided to tackle a board game that had been sitting around unused. Calgary Stampede is the kind of game that gives you a few minutes of novelty while you enjoy the board and setting. Reviewing the game mechanics feels a bit harsh, since it doesn't seem a lot of deliberate design went into it, or at least into the version we were playing. On that note, while the pieces seem intact, the instructions feel very incomplete and openly invite you to try to agree on your own rules, and a photocopied sheet serving as the back cover depicts a version which still had hand written cards. For the sake of completeness, the gameplay problems which quickly emerge are as follows:
Play consists of going around the board and getting chances to win, lose and gamble money. A lot of the wins are in the order of 50 dollars, which soon feel irrelevant as others are for 10,000. Gambling gives you the chance at 2,500 dollar wins, but these too start to feel irrelevant as soon as you realise that the game is going to end with raffles for 100,000 and 150,000. To make matters worse, we were at the 2 end of the 2-6 player range, however it soon became clear that the last stage of the playing board, for wild horse and chuck wagon racing, assumes four players, and can't commence until the absent third and fourth players reach the same square. We didn't wait around.
Today we broke fast with a batch of crepes spread with nutella and the third episode of Kino's Journey. In the afternoon we set out for the East most stretch of the Blue Hill's skyline trail. The trail started at an ice skating rink and wound up through mixed trees past a small quary. Graffiti there proclaimed that Combo would never be forgotten. The scramble up Rattlesnake Hill (295ft) was easier than the descent. Following the blue blazes, we lowered ourselves through a notch in the steeply angled rock and then scrambled and skidded over stone and wet leaves the rest of the way leaving our quadriceps aching.
We're ending our day sipping a cup of hot chocolate while watching World's End.
For a bit of Friday evening frivolity we decided to tackle a board game that had been sitting around unused. Calgary Stampede is the kind of game that gives you a few minutes of novelty while you enjoy the board and setting. Reviewing the game mechanics feels a bit harsh, since it doesn't seem a lot of deliberate design went into it, or at least into the version we were playing. On that note, while the pieces seem intact, the instructions feel very incomplete and openly invite you to try to agree on your own rules, and a photocopied sheet serving as the back cover depicts a version which still had hand written cards. For the sake of completeness, the gameplay problems which quickly emerge are as follows:
Play consists of going around the board and getting chances to win, lose and gamble money. A lot of the wins are in the order of 50 dollars, which soon feel irrelevant as others are for 10,000. Gambling gives you the chance at 2,500 dollar wins, but these too start to feel irrelevant as soon as you realise that the game is going to end with raffles for 100,000 and 150,000. To make matters worse, we were at the 2 end of the 2-6 player range, however it soon became clear that the last stage of the playing board, for wild horse and chuck wagon racing, assumes four players, and can't commence until the absent third and fourth players reach the same square. We didn't wait around.
Today we broke fast with a batch of crepes spread with nutella and the third episode of Kino's Journey. In the afternoon we set out for the East most stretch of the Blue Hill's skyline trail. The trail started at an ice skating rink and wound up through mixed trees past a small quary. Graffiti there proclaimed that Combo would never be forgotten. The scramble up Rattlesnake Hill (295ft) was easier than the descent. Following the blue blazes, we lowered ourselves through a notch in the steeply angled rock and then scrambled and skidded over stone and wet leaves the rest of the way leaving our quadriceps aching.
We're ending our day sipping a cup of hot chocolate while watching World's End.